What We’re Reading

Peter Moore, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We are all familiar with those immortal words of the Declaration of Independence, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Few of us, however, are familiar with how we got those words, those ideas, on which the American Dream turns. Peter Moore turns back the clock from 1776 and explains how those ideas came into being in the early Enlightenment, principally through the life of Ben Franklin, who lived in a world transformed and transforming. In short, it wasn’t the Whig politicians or the political class that pushed these ideas, it was common men and women, writers especially, who had new opportunities opened to them through the growth of cities, the exploration (and colonization) of the world, and the rise of newspapers, magazines, and what we would today call mass media. Included in this wonderful history are the lives of Dr Samuel Johnson, William Strahan, Catherine Macaulay, John Wilkes, and Thomas Paine. Over the course of the life of Ben Franklin, who was connected with all of the above in some way, we witness how the idea of a new life emerged, developed, and eventually led to those immortal words penned by Thomas Jefferson. In sum, it was the product of an emergent optimism about the future, that life could be better for oneself and one’s family, and that contentment (happiness) could finally come about in this life.

~ Paul Krause

Jacques Barzun, The House of Intellect. Intellectualism is not often a nomenclature we throw around in the twenty-first-century, though it was heavily implemented in critical studies in the seventeenth-and-eighteenth-centuries. Barzun’s analytical piece attempts to break down the definition of intellect, intellectual, and intellectualism, or ‘the three enemies of intellect,’ from a high-brow perspective in the English Neoclassical Era to its deterioration in the modern world of his time. The House of Intellect is meant to tear down the stereotype of intellectualism by telling readers one must truly study the humanities, not, more or less, act, talk, and dress the part. Twenty-first-century society even sees this in proximity with dark academia, an Oxford-like appearance when reading a hard copy of classic literature with round rimmed glasses. Barzun makes close ties to this stereotype even in the 1960-70s, telling readers that those who romanticize academia have lost sight of knowledge’s intrinsic value. Rather than wearing a facade, one must research, study, and read for pleasure and purpose, ultimately prompting them to discover themselves and their purpose in academic realms outside of fashionable trends. As a humanities researcher, I take great pride in rediscovering myself through intellectualistic ventures, and reading Barzun’s work is a great reminder of how society must break this habit and return homeward to classical notions of philosophy, criticism, history, and English that used to bring such solace.

~ Sarah Tillard

Robert Nisbet, The Quest For Community. Robert Nisbet wrote many books throughout his life, yet none was more important than The Quest For Community (1953). Published in the same year span as Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind, this book earned Nisbet the reputation as one of the most consequential thinkers of the post-war conservative renaissance in the United States. Nisbet argues that, from the Middle Ages onward, “intermediary institutions” have grown weaker, while the central State has grown stronger. The goal of modern man was to free himself from the shackles of intermediary institutions — families, churches, parishes, monasteries, and local bonds that stand between the individual and the central State. The weakening of intermediary institutions was intended to liberate man, but in the end it resulted in alienation and loneliness. Western man was left stripped of traditional sources of community, compelling him to join the only visible community still available: the distant “national community” offered by the central State. Nisbet’s The Quest For Community is, for us today, a warning against both hyper-individualism and nationalism. It is a call for increased political decentralization and the promotion of small-scale voluntary communities. The decline of the West, believes Nisbet, is related to the simultaneous rise of individualism on the one hand and centralized statism on the other.

~ Darrell Falconburg

Machado de Assis, The Alienist. For anyone trying to get a taste of the great Brazilian writer – and one of the great figures of Portuguese literature – Machado de Assis, The Alienist stands as an exceptional gateway. This short story is a gem that perfectly encapsulates Machado’s unparalleled artistry, wit, penchant for the absurd and incisive commentary that, despite being written in the 19th century, still retains an uncanny resonance to any contemporary reader.

Taking place in small town in Rio de Janeiro that finds itself haunted by the specter of Simão Bacamarte, a psychiatrist insatiable in his desire to cleanse the town of any sign of derangement, the story perfectly displays how one’s descent into madness can be a mere byproduct of one’s obsession with sanity.

At the heart of this whimsical tale, full of twists and turns, is a perennial reflection on the nature of power, rationality and madness. What does it mean to be insane? What are the limits of science? Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Who watches the watchmen? Machado makes one reflect on all those great questions, and his answers, sometimes cynical, others allusive, will surely, at least. find a way to evoke a good laugh from the reader.

~ João Silva

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